ABSTRACT
The distinction between ends and means, between values and policies, has been absolutely critical for New Labour. The claim has been, as exemplified in the quotation from Tony Blair as the epigraph to this chapter, that New Labour is still committed to the historic values of the Labour Party while being radical and revisionist in the means it has used and proposes to use in the pursuit of those values. It is argued that the values or the aims or the ends remain constant and that this preserves the political and ideological continuity of the Party in both its Old and New Labour forms; the means, however, are radically different as one would expect since circumstances change and the ways in which values have to be pursued reflect this change. So far, this claim might appear to be unexceptionable and to have a great deal of political force: securing the political continuity of the Party while sanctioning a range of policies to realise the Party’s traditional values which are not normally seen as typical of Labour’s historical approach to policy-making.
